Any exercises/tests/exams freely available with answers to test basic R knowledge

Question

I have the responsibility of ensuring that a colleague who is just learning R knows the basics before a course where that is a requirement. The colleague has gone through a couple of tutorials so hopefully she is ok, but I would like to give her a test to gauge it.

I was therefore wondering if anyone knew if there were any materials on the web that would be suitable? and is possible had both questions and answers.

PS Cross-posted to [email protected]

Answer 1

There is a whole set of exercises with solutions from the book Data Analysis and Graphics Using R. (Maindonald & Braun, 2nd edn, CUP 2007) available online : http://maths.anu.edu.au/~johnm/r-book/2edn/exercises/

Next to that, a quick search using the obscure randomized pagecollector Google brought to me a set of exercises where you can pick out whatever you want. Try the magic phrase "R exercises". ;)

Some I found interesting :

• http://www2.imperial.ac.uk/~das01/RCourse/Exercises.pdf (very nice)
• http://dial.liacs.nl/Courses/MicroArrayDataAnalysis/Exercises/Introduction_to_R_Exercises_Nov_2004.pdf (rather basic)
• http://www.shlrc.mq.edu.au/masters/students/raltwarg/altwargslp802.html (rather basic)

Answer 2

If this is just a one time single person evaluation then a oral style exam is probably going to tell you a lot more than a set of fixed problems. Get a data set and have her read it into R, do some basic data manipulation, a couple of plots, and a standard analysis or two. Based on what she does well or has a challenge with you can modify the direction that you have things go and what additional questions you ask.